Fleas and Snakes
by InferiorNova
Summary: A kidnapping, An ultimatum and bad luck. "...If I don't kill my brother in a month, all my friends will die." Semi-realistic!OC


**Warning** : Course language, Violence, Mentions of kidnapping and hostage situations.

Disclaimer: All rights to Hunter X Hunter go to Yoshihiro Togashi. I do not own any characters except for Emi and a few selected inserts, nor do I have any rights to the canon plot.

I am so excited to post a Hunter X Hunter fic! I hope you all enjoy this little taste. Oh and I hope that it will be a little different to your usual read, I do love to make my OCs life and everyone else's difficult :)

 **Fleas and Snakes**

 **Prologue**

Remember your childhood dream?

Did you want to be an astronaut? A writer? A hunter? What idealistic image did you have of yourself?

Now, pinpoint the moment when your dreams were crushed by Fate. Do you remember what it was that caused your aspirations to hurtle itself into the unending black abyss with all the other astronauts and treasure hunters?

If Emi herself were to pick a singular moment in her life that smashed her plans for the future into a million tiny shards, it would be the day she was kidnapped. Not a very unique scenario, she would be the first to admit, and not one which ended in someone's horrible demise or the formulation of any kind of helpful skill or power.

( _No, all that came later._ )

Thinking back, it had been one of the few situations in which Emi had felt a stomach churning, tangible sense of despair. The kind of ( _imgoingtodienopleasedontkillmenonoplease_ ) feeling that's doesn't let you sleep at night because you know that you are going to die and the only question is when. When and who. This isn't to say that she had never had such a close encounter with death before; this was not her first rodeo - in fact Emi's life could be considered up to that point a collection of tiny rodeos in which she had consistently avoided ever mounting the bull. Fate had caught her eventually though, as it always does; One moment she had been going about her usual business and the next she had spent an undeterminable amount of time wondering when she would die ( _Fate has a sense of humour like that_ ).

So, let's see how much Emi could recall of that particular cock-up to bring you all up to date.

.

.

.

 **Black**.

Everything had been black and blisteringly humid and decidedly not a place she would have ever purposely wanted to be in. Emi's skin had prickled in protest to the thick air wrapped around her limbs. That day was one of the many mind-meltingly boiling days in the hottest summer on record. It had promised to make her situation transcend from bad to miserable to inconsolable. She wished absently that she could run a cold bath, remove the bag from her head and submerge herself in icy water.

Emi wished for a lot of things really. She had always had a touch of sanguinity underneath her cynicism.

( _Never mind that she hadn't been able to recall the last time she had had a bath by that point. That fact had seemed to bother her a lot more when she was under the influence of sedative drugs than it did normally._ )

A man had been screaming his voice raw, she could feel his warm breath through the bag. The culminated sweat on her brow dripped down her cheeks in trails from the extra heat, adding to the already salty film on her face that she could have killed to wipe away. Emi had even tasted it on her tongue, mixed with a bitter flavour that made her feel nauseous. She had twisted her wrists back and forth at the plastic ties containing her, a stupid idea in hindsight but a valiant attempt nonetheless from her spongelike mind. The cold back of a metal chair had pressed up against the crease of her elbows, its texture rough and grainy and undeniably a Tetanus risk. She had given it a sharp tug, only to find the metal disappointingly firm. Emi had continued to rotate her wrists against the tie and tugging, finding it easy to ignore the sharp pain that began to throb in response to her careless movements. Logical Emi would have known that in a fight between the plastic tie and her skin, the tie will always win. At that point however her brain had been in the throws of a mini mental break down and a drug induced out-of-body experience. It had been like she had cotton wool in her head that had dampened her senses so when signals reached her brain they were a faint shadow of an extreme reaction. Bursts of fluorescent colours had appeared and spread across the dark canvas of the bag, the warm and cool tones wrestling for dominance. The chair that she sat in had seemed to rock back and forth, flitting between stability and being on the brink of falling. Emi's feet had been firmly planted on the floor, which mean't that she wasn't moving. Not that she had stopped to think about that at the time. No, she was too busy trying to escape death and remember the last time she bathed whilst spiralling through a trip on who knows what.

During her fifth battle against the chair back an unrestrained force had smashed into the girl's face. To drugged Emi, it had seemed like the swirling colours had stopped their fight and had turned on her. She had no idea why - she didn't want to rule over the bag space. Her cheek had erupted with white hot pain, the kind that made you want to throw up and black out but your body can not decide on which takes priority. She just knew that

It

 **Hurts**

.

.

.

The dull thud of the punch had faded and slowly the echoes of the man's yelling had returned as it raised in volume, driving railroad spikes through her skull.

The man, her captor, his voice had probably been deep, a rich bass she had imagined like on alcohol commercials or talk shows. At that time it had been high and cracked with stress. Neither Imprisoned Emi nor Normal Emi had heard him before; she would have remembered someone with such a nice voice.

A new voice had joined the strange symphony of sound, slurring at first before it quickly rose to a crescendo. This voice had completely juxtaposed the base in front of her; the new voice had been feminine, higher pitched and pretty in a pre-teen kind of way. At that time it had been spouting hysterical gibberish. A few hours later the voice and the words it's melody had carried had become only too recognisable to Emi's sobering ears.

There had been some scuffling after that, the higher female voice crying louder and the man barking out a command. Then, a thud. The abrupt silence had shocked Emi, the unidentifiable drip of water somewhere close by sounding suddenly like bombs dropping on a silent plain.

After a quiet moment the bag had been ripped away, the rough fabric burning her skin as it slid over her face. Emi had squinted in anticipation of blinding light but the room was dim enough that there was no need. Everything was dull grey concrete, the walls, floor and ceiling had only been broken by lines of orange where water leaks had left iron residue. It explained the dripping. The room had been almost empty apart from a man and woman monitoring a sentient duffle bag that seemed to shift slowly and the figure which loomed menacingly over her. It smelt so strongly of dead animal and cigar smoke it had made Emi's eyes water.

The man in front of her had begun to pace irritably, a black bag in his hand and distain on his face. His features match his voice she had noted, dark and angularly handsome underneath the dark circles and grime. A huge, ugly tattoo had drawn a stark line from his forehead to his jaw before it dipped down his throat and vanished under his clothing. The quarrelling colours had decided to seek residency in the black line, every so often reminding her via a flicker from black to blue or red. He had had a very straight posture, something which at the time had sent warning bells careening around Emi's cotton wool mind. She had never met a downtown thug who could balance books on his head, after all. Another warning shot off at the serrated hunting knife in his hand and again at the angry tick which pulsed along his jaw.

"Guess what? The plan's gone to shit, so here is how it's going to fucking go. We are going to tell you what to do and you are going to carry it out."

He leant forward, his face so close to hers that she could see his temple pulse a steady rhythm. Emi could see herself in his coal eyes, her molten eyes childishly wide and classy as they flitted back and forth nonsensically around his face. Regarding her disconnection with reality the man pressed the knife to her flesh, the jagged teeth slowly piercing the skin of her collarbone. Emi groaned softly.

"You get to have a family fucking reunion."


End file.
